This is a mystery that was finally officially answered quite some time ago (a year ago exactly, allowing for it being a leap year this year) when Jailbreak aired. We met Ruby and Sapphire, then they fused together to form Garnet again. Though it’s obviously not timely, we’ve chosen it as our first Answer because it was the perfect mystery: so many hints were dropped over the course of the season, allowing large amounts of fans to be sure of Garnet’s fusion status well before the answer was ever given.

So what were these hints? There was one really, really big one: like Opal, who was the first fusion we saw, Garnet had two gems with different cuts but the same color. On the temple door, however, there were two gems with the same cuts as Garnet’s gems but with different colors. You could clearly see the details when she opened the door in Together Breakfast, so this piece of the puzzle was actually put in the show before we could even guess there might be a puzzle to solve (which Giant Woman took care of by introducing us to fusion).

This was enough to start fan speculation about Garnet’s status as a fusion almost immediately after Giant Woman aired. Not only did she have the two gems with the same color, and not only did the temple door imply that they should be different colors, but just like Opal, Garnet is a very strong Gem. Whenever there was a monster to fight Garnet was always the one doing the heavy lifting (she was even the only effective fighter in Arcade Mania), and Opal did the same thing: absolutely dominated a fight where Amethyst and Pearl were helpless.

There were, of course, a bunch of other smaller hints. They’re a bit subtle as foreshadowing, but they did create an intriguing web of coincidences that seemed quite unlikely were Garnet not actually a fusion:

• The series pilot opens with Garnet standing in between fire and water.
• Garnet uses a keytar (a “fusion” of a guitar and a keyboard) in Steven and the Stevens.
• When Alexandrite breaks apart in Fusion Cuisine, Garnet initially breaks into two pieces.
• Hopper and Hoppy are color-coded with pink (a shade of red) and blue outfits, just like the gems Garnet activated on the temple door.
• In Alone Together Garnet says that (unlike Amethyst and Pearl) fusion isn’t hard for her.

Heck, Garnet even gets two shooting stars in the sky at her point in the theme song! It’s like they were winking at us every time the show started.

Of course even with all of this there were plenty of people who didn’t believe Garnet was a fusion. The examples of Amethyst, Pearl, Rose Quartz, Lapis Lazuli, and Peridot seemed to indicate that a Gem’s gem should be placed on the line of vertical symmetry. While we would, much later when The Answer aired, find out that different Gems of the same type can have their gems placed different places, at the time it was a missing piece of information.

Still, as far as fan theories go, Garnet fusion theory was rock solid (no pun intended). There was some strong evidence in its favor, lots of narrative choices that only made sense if she was a fusion, and only minor stumbling blocks in its way. They won’t all be so straight-forward, so we should look back and appreciate what we once had.

Steven Universe is a show with layered mysteries: every time we get a question answered, at least one new question is added to the chain. We thought it would be fun to look at some of the answers we’ve received, and some of the questions we still have.

We’ve recently covered Ocean Gem on the podcast, and one thing came up as something we still don’t know the answer to a full season later: what side was Lapis on during the Crystal Gem rebellion on Earth? Obviously she doesn’t like the Crystal Gems, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she fought against them. Some of her lines even imply she may have once sided with them.

The existence of these lines is great: unlike most mysteries, we have more solid ground to try to solve the mystery for ourselves. (Not that we won’t try our best on others!)

Lapis: “Are you really a Crystal Gem?”
Steven: “Yeah!”
Lapis: “But… You set me free.”

This is the more straight-forward of the three important lines we’ve identified, and we still can’t glean too much from this one—not even whether it’s more about her or the Crystal Gems. Does it mean that the Crystal Gems are unique in their harvest of gems for powering items, or does it mean that Lapis is someone the Crystal Gems would have a motivation to keep imprisoned?

This could just mean Lapis recognizes a simple fact we’ve all recognized as well: the Crystal Gems don’t want to free any Gems at all, because even one escaping the Earth and making it back to the homeworld could mean the death of all life on the planet. After fighting a thousand-year war to protect that life, and losing so many friends to do it, they wouldn’t want to let that happen.

You three knew I was in there, and you didn’t do anything! Did you even wonder who I used to be?

This line is more complicated. She’s clearly not blaming the three Crystal Gems we know for imprisoning her (Amethyst wasn’t even around then), and this line would also make sense if Gems loyal to the homeworld were responsible for putting her into the mirror (which would also explain why she was found at the galaxy warp).

Perhaps she is indicting the Crystal Gems for not caring for the freedom of a Gem being forced to power an object, while having fought a war for the freedom of the Earth? That’s the whole point of these Mysteries posts: we don’t really have any way of knowing. Still, it seems to be the most reasonable guess, especially considering the last quote from Lapis that we’ve chosen.

They don’t really care about other Gems—all they care about is the Earth… But I never believed in this place.

Another complicated line. Back when the episode first aired it was what told us (long before On the Run aired) that the Crystal Gems fought to protect the planet, but how it pertains to Lapis still hasn’t been explained.

The first part about the Crystal Gems not caring about other Gems would, again, fit in a scenario where Lapis was imprisoned by the homeworld, but her stating that she never believed in Earth is quite interesting. It would only seem to make sense if she had herself once been a Crystal Gem: if she was a homeworld loyalist, then her not believing in the Earth like the Crystal Gems would be a given.

But of course this is all a mystery. If Lapis sided with the Crystal Gems without believing in Earth, why? What are the odds that neither Garnet nor Pearl would have recognized such a powerful former comrade? It’s been a long time since the war, so perhaps anything is possible. We’ll just have to wait and hope we learn more about Lapis in the future.